Rude Mechs is an Austin-based collective theatre company that has created a genre-averse cocktail of over 30 original plays that we produced at our venue, The Off Center, in Austin, TX, from 1999 to 2017, when The University of Texas at Austin priced us out and demolished it and put up a parking lot. Hook ’em. When we are lucky, we get to tour our work nationally and internationally. In 2018 we saw the world premieres of two commissioned productions: Field Guide, produced as part of Yale Repertory Theatre’s 2017/2018 season, and Not Every Mountain produced at the Guthrie Theatre with a finishing commission. Other recent productions also include Stop Hitting Yourself, was commissioned and produced by Lincoln Center Theatre’s LCT3 in January 2014, and toured to Dallas and San Francisco in 2015, and Now Now Oh Now, a National Theatre Pilot selectee premiered at Duke University and toured to Yale University, Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, and Miami Light, Fringe Arts in Philly. Our play The Method Gun has toured to such far-flung destinations as New York City, Los Angeles, New Haven, Columbus, Boston, Portland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Brisbane (Australia), and just keeps touring. We don’t mind that at all.
Since our first season, in 1996, we’ve received over a billion awards and nominations (mostly nominations) for artistic excellence, including a 2013 BESSIE nomination for our re-enactment of The Performance Group’s Dionysus in 69, and the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award for Shawn Sides 2015. Rude Mechs was honored with an induction to The Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2013, and featured in a nationally aired PBS documentary called Arts in Context: Rude Mechs.
Rude Mechs is led today by Co-Producing Artistic Directors Madge Darlington, Thomas Graves, Lana Lesley, Kirk Lynn and Shawn Sides, with Managing Director Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw. Two decades into this experiment, we remain a woman-led organization that has outlasted housing bubbles, tech bubbles, the Intel shell, and the “sharing economy.” Requiring less government interference than Uber, we’ve survived as an experimental theatre company based in the State of Texas because of the City of Austin’s devotion to investing in the small and mid-size performing arts groups that are the bedrock of Austin’s arts scene.
Here’s what we do, click on the links to learn more about each program:
Create New Plays
We collaboratively create original work in Austin. We don’t produce the “old chestnuts” or even new chestnuts by other people. All of our work is home grown. We promise to always use our best thinking, our fiercest arguments, and the last of our midnight oil to make mentally nervy and physically ecstatic shows. We believe Austin has a unique voice. We are proud to represent it here, and to export it with sass as we tour nationally and internationally.
Provide Space to Artists for their WORK
CRASHBOX We manage Crashbox (and before that Rude Studios, and before that The Off Center), Austin’s most affordable venue for rehearsal, meeting, admin, and art/craft space. It is home to our scenic lending library and used by visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, dancers, and theatre companies. By keeping our rental rates low, and often giving the space away for free, we subsidize the work that goes on in Crashbox to the tune of about $15,000 per year.
RUDE MECHS ARTIST RESIDENCY We run the Rude Mechs Artist Residency at The Plant at Kyle. Our partnership with The Plant at Kyle is full swing. To date, we have hosted six artists: 2 poets, 1 composer, 2 playwrights, and 1 opera singer. If you would like to learn more about and/or apply for a residency, click here.
WHY WE’RE HERE We are in the throes of creating this pilot program in writing and performance in partnership with Casa Marianella and the refugees they serve, to share their stories and provide a platform for artistic expression.
Co-Produce New Works
We keep Austin’s performance scene fresh by co-producing local artists in our Rude Fusion series providing space, resources, marketing, front of house and box support to emergent and under-served artists. We consider Rude Fusion applications year-round, but usually limit the co-productions to two within a year. If you would like to submit a proposal for Rude Fusion, click here.
Serve our Community
SCENIC LENDING LIBRARY
Rude Mechs stores re-usable scenic and properties elements and offers them to Austin’s live performance artists free of charge in an effort to reduce the amount of ecological waste our industry generates each year. In 2006, Co-Producing Artistic Director Thomas Graves imagined and created this service as part of his Master’s thesis, and Rude Mechs was happy to provide the square footage to help him realize this project which has been going strong for several years. Contact Thomas Graves for information about the lending library.
PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN
Rude Mechs is dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to see our productions, regardless of economic status. To that end, when our shows have funding, we offer Pay-What-You-Can admission, and we mean it quite literally.
POST-SHOW TALKBACKS
We make new works – we want your opinions, and so we invite you to stick around to join the cast, crew, and creators for a lively and engaging discussion about the work and what you want from it.
OBSERVERSHIPS
We offer observerships in production, administration and arts education. We believe it’s important to serve as a bridge to the next generation of artists, and offer exposure to just about everything we do – the good, the bad, the ugly. Official observerships are open to anyone 18 years old and up. We wish we could, but we cannot provide housing or transportation (beyond a bike and a bus route map) for out-of-town observers. Apply for an observership here.